What Properties Might Light of Millennia Past Have that Today's Doesn't?

There is overwhelming evidence that radioactive decay has been constant. Even the RATE team had to acknowledge that--after spending a million dollars of creationists' money in an effort to prove otherwise.Two sections from Assessing the RATE Project, by Randy Isaac

3. Accelerated Rates of Decay

​

There is no direct evidence provided for accelerated decay. It is inferred solely from combining the evidence for massive decay with the young-earth position. As noted above, the evidence given in this book for a young earth is not based on any reliable techniques and so the argument for accelerated decay crumbles. Nevertheless, the authors explore theoretically how such an increase in the decay rates might have occurred. Through an analysis of nuclear forces, they indicate that only a small change in the strength of the coupling constant that characterizes the so-called strong force between nucleons would lead to a change in decay constants of many orders of magnitude.

​

While this may be correct mathematically, the authors fail to explain how such a fundamental constant of particle physics could change even a tiny amount. Experimental data and theoretical considerations have shown the strong coupling constant to be indeed a constant. Furthermore, to explain their results, the authors must speculate that this coupling constant took a different value in at least two time periods in the past: the first three days of creation week and the year of the Flood. At other times, it was the same as today. A further complication is the need to postulate that some nuclei were affected but not others. They state that C-14 did not have an accelerated decay constant while heavier nuclei did. As a result, not only have the authors failed to make a case for accelerated decay, they must assert an extraordinary variation of the strong coupling constant as a function of time and of nuclear weight to force-fit the data.

​

4. Two Unsolved Problems: Heat and Radiation

​

The authors report that faced with this evidence, a young-earth advocate must address at least two key scientific problems resulting from a one-year period of accelerated decay rates during the Flood. The first is the heat problem. Thermal energy from radioactive processes is a major source of heat in the earth. If those processes were accelerated by many orders of magnitude, the earth would have quickly evaporated from the heat had there not been an extraordinary mechanism of cooling. The authors state:

​

The removal of heat was so rapid that it likely involved a process other than conduction, convection, or radiation We believe it may be possible to discover how [God] did it (p. 763).

​

Future research is suggested along the lines of Russell Humphreys’ idea of volumetric cooling based on relativistic principles even though this known phenomenon, the basis for red-shifting of starlight, does not apply to bound particles such as the earth. It is acknowledged that this approach, even if it were valid, has the difficulty of being uniform rather than selective as would be needed to cool only radioactive material and not, for example, the oceans. In other words, the authors acknowledge that accelerated decay requires a most unusual heat removal mechanism that is outside the known laws of thermodynamics. The second unresolved problem cited in the book is the radiation problem. How did Noah and his passengers survive a year in which radioactivity was one million times greater than it is today? No known solution exists, they state. Nevertheless, The RATE group is confident that these issues will be solved

​

Assessing the RATE Project

It is very easy to claim accelerated decay, but a lot more difficult to deal with the unintended consequences of such an accelerated decay.How do you propose to do so?

It is, eh?Well, if you don't like evidence I suppose then you rely on magic, superstition, wishful thinking, old wives tales, folklore, what the stars foretell and what the neighbors think, omens, public opinion, astromancy, spells, Ouija boards, anecdotes, Da Vinci codes, tarot cards, sorcery, seances, primitive calendars, sore bunions, black cats, divine revelation, table tipping, witch doctors, crystals and crystal balls, ancient tribal myths, numerology, divination, faith healing, miracles, palm reading, the unguessable verdict of history, magic tea leaves, new age mumbo-jumbo, hoodoo, voodoo and all that other weird stuff?Thanks, I'll stick to evidence.